“A child who had carried some parcel for you to Gower Place volunteered information.”

Outwardly amused, and bearing herself as though no incident could easily disconcert her, Eve did not succeed in suppressing every sign of nervousness.  Constrained by his wonder to study her with critical attention, the young man began to feel assured that she was consciously acting a part.  That she should be able to carry it off so well, therein lay the marvel.  Of course, London had done much for her.  Possessing no common gifts, she must have developed remarkably under changed conditions, and must, indeed, have become a very different person from the country girl who toiled to support her drunken father’s family.  Hilliard remembered the mention of her sister who had gone to Birmingham disappeared; it suggested a characteristic of the Madeley blood, which possibly must be borne in mind if he would interpret Eve.

She rested her arms on the little round table.

“So Mrs. Brewer asked you to come and find me?”

“It was only a suggestion, and I may as well tell you how it came about.  I used to have my meals in Mrs. Brewer’s parlour, and to amuse myself I looked over her album.  There I found your portrait, and—­well, it interested me, and I asked the name of the original.”

Hilliard was now in command of himself; he spoke with simple directness, as his desires dictated.

“And Mrs. Brewer,” said Eve, with averted eyes, “told you about me?”

“She spoke of you as her daughter’s friend,” was the evasive answer.  Eve seemed to accept it as sufficient, and there was a long silence.

“My name is Hilliard,” the young man resumed.  “I am taking the first holiday, worth speaking of, that I have known for a good many years.  At Dudley my business was to make mechanical drawings, and I can’t say that I enjoyed the occupation.”

“Are you going back to it?”

“Not just yet.  I have been in France, and I may go abroad again before long.”

“For your pleasure?” Eve asked, with interest.

“To answer ‘Yes’ wouldn’t quite express what I mean.  I am learning to live.”

She hastily searched his face for the interpretation of these words, then looked away, with grave, thoughtful countenance.

“By good fortune,” Hilliard pursued.  “I have become possessed of money enough to live upon for a year or two.  At the end of it I may find myself in the old position, and have to be a living machine once more.  But I shall be able to remember that I was once a man.”

Eve regarded him strangely, with wide, in tent eyes, as though his speech had made a peculiar impression upon her.

“Can you see any sense in that?” he asked, smiling.

“Yes.  I think I understand you.”

She spoke slowly, and Hilliard, watching her, saw in her face more of the expression of her portrait than he had yet discovered.  Her soft tone was much more like what he had expected to hear than her utterances hitherto.